DEVELOPING: Hurricane Irma Could Hit East Tennessee

Be aware, but don’t be alarmed. Hurricane Irma may impact East Tennessee if it treks in this direction, as some projections indicate, but the extremely dangerous Category 5 storm won’t pack the wallop here that it will bring during its initial coastal landfall. Packing winds of 185 mph, Irma is expected to hit or brush by several Caribbean islands in the next few days as a high-pressure system steers the storm

toward Florida, where it may make landfall this weekend. Several predicted paths show Irma impacting Florida and then turning north toward East Tennessee. “There is still a lot of uncertainty of how it will affect us – if it will affect us at all,” cautioned Jeremy Buckles, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Morristown, on Tuesday afternoon. READ MORE